Cool Hand Luke and Resolve

I landed on “Cool Hand Luke” while surfing yesterday. Man, was Paul Newman something, or what? For all of his faults, and despite being guilty of whatever landed him in that prison camp, Luke was resolved to fight the injustice of his existence. He was resolved not to lose the essence of who he was, despite the hardships imposed on him by those who would break him, break his will, make him relinquish that which made him, well, cool.

Movies are usually an escape for me. I’m not often prompted to terribly deep thought while watching one. But I wondered, what of my life that occasionally seems so hard is actually hard enough that it bends me from a true course? And if it is, indeed, that hard, how long could I hold out against the constancy of the difficulty, like Luke, before I broke?

Luke, knowing that he may finally be broken, seeks answers in the church he forswore. Looking to the ceiling he challenges God, questioning, demanding. He opens the door, stands there, framed. “What we have here is a failure to communicate”. A last act of defiance, or a capitulation? One is left to wonder: what was His answer?